Les quatre éléments

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“Les quatre éléments” (2005), concerto for flute, children choir and small percussions, is dedicated to Pierre-Yves Artaud. The work suggests in four distinct parts Earth, Water, Fire and Air. In a ritual form, sometimes haunting, it is a hymn to nature.

French composer Sophie Lacaze studied music at the Conservatoire de Toulouse, and continued at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, where she received the Composition Prize. Afterwards, she studied with Allain Gaussin, Philippe Manoury and Antoine Tisne in France, and with Franco Donatoni and Ennio Morricone in Italy. She also engaged in music theatre with Georges Aperghis at the Centre Acanthes, and attended Pierre Boulez's courses in College de France.

She has been working with several ensembles and soloists in France and abroad for over 15 years. Her compositions, which range from works for solo instruments to chamber and orchestral music, with also two chamber operas and works with tape, are regularly performed in leading festivals in more than 20 countries.

She was awarded the Grand Prix Lyceen des Compositeurs (2009) and the Claude Arrieu Prize of the SACEM (2010). In 2012, she is laureate of the Association Beaumarchais – SACD.

Unsubdued but attentive to musical trends and schools, Sophie Lacaze has developed an original aesthetics that takes into account the current research on sound while looking to restore music its primary functions, ie ritual, incantation, dance, and its links with nature.

She is Associate Professor at Paul Valery University (Montpellier, France) where she teaches composition and orchestration.